Scrapping by Design

I seem to be on a roll making these mini albums recently. I made this one after being made aware that a friend is celebrating a landmark birthday soon. I decided to make her a small scrapbook album using this design.

The instructions for making the fold are found here: Folded 3 x 3 Album with Calendar Focus.

The album uses one sheet of 12 by 12 paper, folded to make several 3 x 3 “pages”.  Each page has a pocket, resulting in seven pockets.

For the album front, I used bookboard for firmness, then covered with textured paper. I added a strip of thing gold metal that I had dry embossed using an embossing folder and the Big Shot.  I added a gold rosette made with a Tim Holtz die.

For the back cover, I used a larger strip of embossed gold metal, and a stamped image of a clock face. The text circling the clock face reads “The Best of Times.”

Since this is a scrapbook, I used a digitally edited photograph for each page front, trimming with small embellishments such as rub-ons or stamped text.

I used a travel theme on the seven tags. The recipient has travelled quite a bit and taken photos. I used her own photos for the background images on the tags, and used Photoshop Elements to add a travel-related quote on top of each photo.

I tied the small scrapbook closed with a strip of beige organza ribbon.

It is perhaps a bit early in the year to be making a calendar for 2016. However, that is where my muse lead me. This mini journal, calendar themed, is made from folding one 12″ by 12″ sheet of scrapbook paper. The instructions for making it are here: Folded 3 x 3 Album with Calendar Focus.

I made this mini journal for a swap at Art for the Creative Mind, an online mixed media swap group. We called this project Swapped for Fun.  The list owner mailed each participant an identical stamped image. It was the woman’s head that you see on the cover of the journal. We each made a project using the stamped image. We were free to do anything we wanted with the image. The idea is to see what different approaches the members will take.

After some consideration, I decided to use it as the front cover decoration for a small calendar journal. I colored the image with Prismacolor pencils, then cut it out using a circular die cut and the Big Shot.

The words “Calendar for Year 2006” are computer generated, as are the printouts of the tiny calendars.

The front and back covers are made with heavy, glittery scrapbook paper, as are the seven tags that are tucked into the page “pockets”.

I decorated with die cuts and occasionally with stickers.

I left the backs of the tags white, but stamped a meaningful word on the back of each, using black ink.

I closed the mini journal by attaching two silver colored decorative buttons to the front and back covers, and running peach colored ribbon through the holes, as shown.

I hope my swap partner likes this project. It was interesting to make.

This is Week 10 in Lifebook 2015, taught by Tamara LaPorte. Its called Layers of Your Heart.

Should you be interested, use this link to visit the Lifebook site: Willowing Arts Lifebook 2015.
For this one, we drew and cut out a number of paper hearts. I used six.

We decorated each heart differently. Each heart represents something we appreciate or are grateful for.

When completed,k we attached the hearts at the bottom tip using a brad or other fastener.

My favorite is the top one, which is blue and has a circular design made with a brass stencil and modeling paste.

This is a project from Lifebook 2015. The project is called Community of Heart Book, and the instructor was Jill K. Berry.

We were shown how to cut out the paper-doll-book shape, which was loosely done the way we made strings of paper dolls when we were kids. The dolls fold up at the “seams” to form a “book”.

We decorated each doll-page to resemble one of our loved ones. Each loved one is holding or showing something that is near and dear to their heart. So I have the football fan, the wine connoisseur, the elegant lady and the gardener.

Each doll has a flap cut in the lower body. Inside the flap, we have written private messages to or about each member.

My book is made from scapbook paper augmented by acrylic paint,  hand drawings and colorings and hand cut embellishments, such as the football and the wine bottle.

If you wish to know more about this year long course, in which you can save all videos to your disk so you can work at your own speed, the link is: Willowing Arts Lifebook 2015.

My swap group, Art for the Creative Mind, is planning a year long project in which we exchange page for a “fat book” or chunky book.

Fat books or chunky books are books that are four inches by four inches square.

I actually made this book cover a few months back. It is made from a jigsaw puzzle. I painted over the front with a gel medium. When dry, I turned the completed jigsaw upside down, and then glued white card stock on the back.

I cut this into the appropriate size for my fat book covers, and punched a hole in the corner. I will use a binder ring to hold things in place.

The theme is “Many Colours”. I thought the colours on this jigsaw made it appropriate.

A few days ago, I posed pictures of a star-shaped mini book that I made, with a “travelog” theme.

This is the video demonstrating how to make a star book, and showing the inside pages.